Ram,

> If Historical is set to true, how long each item is stored in the DB
> before actually purged? If the items are not purged, how to tackle
> the ever increasing DB? I am using version 0.3.

In nntp//rss v0.3, the historical flag means that items are permanently kept
in the database.

You can take a look at the following forum post that describes how to
manually purge items from the database:

http://www.methodize.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28

However, I'd recommend that you consider upgrading to nntp//rss v0.5b1.
Aside from a number of new features, it now supports expiration times for
historical articles, and will automatically purge those from the database.

Regards,

Jason